Fifteen
October 13
Early Sunday morning
HE KNEW IT had gone too smoothly—Paz walking up through those pine trees carrying the baby, the still-sleeping child snuggling into Ruperta’s bosom, the ease with which they had simply rolled back through the campground and onto the highway beyond. At first he thought Clootie’s Commit Your Life To Jesus card might be making his luck hold, but as soon as he merged onto I-75, Jesus bailed out. The baby woke up and started to shriek. Ruperta opened a bottle of the formula he’d bought, but the damn kid didn’t seem to know what to do with it. The baby’d take the rubber nipple in her mouth, then spit it out as if it were something nasty. The more Ruperta offered it, the angrier the brat grew, balling up her little fists and yowling like some bear cub separated from its mother.
The racket continued for hours—the baby screaming, Ruperta jabbering in Spanish, Paz alternately swearing and crossing himself.
Finally, when the hard, bright tongue of a headache began to lick around his eyes, Stump Logan turned, worn out, into a Kmart parking lot, understanding fully why some parents beat their babies to death. They must do it with great joy, relishing each blow as payback for all their suffering. Even Paz looked grateful as Stump ordered him to leave Ruperta and the squalling kid in the van. For an hour he and the little wetback strolled up and down the aisles, tossing items in their cart. By the time they returned, both Ruperta and the baby had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Ruperta’s dark hair damp with sweat, the baby’s diaper oozing with shit.
Now they were in Chattanooga in room 114 of a ratty cinder-block motel called the Taj Mahal, rented from an Indian woman in an orange sari who wanted five dollars extra to supply them with a phone. Paz snored from one of the lumpy beds, while Ruperta and the baby slept in the other. Logan sat in a chair propped up against the door, studying a map of Tennessee and praying the baby would not wake up and cry again. The throbbing in his head had just begun to ease. If she woke up and brought it back to full flower, he’d have to kill her.
He leaned over and lifted one corner of the water-stained curtains. Though it was still dark, the truck-driving couple he’d listened to farting and fucking all night were climbing back into the J.B. Hunt cab they’d driven up in. He checked his watch: 4:33. Almost time to get up. They had a lot to do today.
He hobbled to the bathroom, then crept over and touched Paz on the shoulder.
“Sí?” The little man jumped, instantly awake, alert as a fireman.
“Get Ruperta up,” Stump ordered softly. “But don’t wake that damn baby!”
Nodding, Paz leaned over his sleeping wife and put his hand on her shoulder. Ruperta shot up, rubbing her eyes, then immediately turned to the child.
“Don’t wake her up!” Paz cautioned in a whisper. “She’ll give Gordo another headache.”
“Sí,” Ruperta replied. She smiled down at the infant, then rose and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Stump looked at Walkingstick’s kid. The little brat slept on her stomach, her legs tucked under her, her butt high in the air. His timing was perfect.
Grabbing one of his Kmart sacks, he sat down beside her. She flinched at the sudden bouncing of the bed, but didn’t wake. From the sack he withdrew a pair of small, sharply pointed scissors.
“Señor?” Paz’s eyes widened.
“Hold her still,” Stump ordered. “Let’s get this done before Ruperta gets out of the john.”
Trembling, Paz did as he was told. Stump grabbed the dark fringe that curled around the back of the baby’s neck, then began to cut the hair that Lily Walkingstick had come into the world with, smiling as the locks fell into his palm, feathery as cornsilk.
“Madre…” Paz whispered in horror as he watched the gleaming point of the scissors snipping around the child’s tender neck.
Stump snipped just above her ears, dropping the dark hair on the sheet beside her. She began to stir and squirm when he started trimming the crown of her head. He cut on. Minutes later he stopped and smiled. Not one hair on the little girl’s head was now longer than half an inch. Edwina wouldn’t consider her much of a prize, but who cared what that old heifer thought?
The bathroom door opened. “Madre de Díos!’’ Ruperta screamed as Lily began to cry. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up!” Stump commanded. “These walls are like paper. Do you want the police to come?’’
“Silencio, Ruperta!” Paz pleaded with his wife. “He isn’t hurting her.”
“Just watch.” Stump grinned at the terrified Mexicans. “You’ll like this.”
With Lily awake and squalling, he flipped her over, unsnapped her dirty white jumpsuit, and tugged it off. The cold air on her warm skin enraged the baby further, and she flailed at him with her fists and legs. Digging down into his sack again, he pulled out a new jumpsuit, this one blue with a tiny cowboy stitched on the front. By the time he’d stuffed her legs and arms into the garment and snapped it shut, Lily’s mouth was square with rage, her cheeks bright red. As tears rolled down the sides of her face and into her stubby hair, he scooped her up.
“There,” he said proudly, showing her to the stunned Mexicans. “Lily Walkingstick has just become Willy Gonzalez. Meet your new parents, young man.”
He thrust the screaming baby at Ruperta. She held Lily close, jiggling her on her shoulder until her shrill cries gradually faded into hiccuping sobs. Then she laid the little girl gently back down on the bed and started to unsnap the outfit he’d just put on her.
“What are you doing?” Stump roared. Surely this chattering parrot of a woman wasn’t going to give him any grief.
Ruperta shot him a dark look. “She needs her diaper changed, Señor.”
Muttering to herself in Spanish, she lifted the child’s bottom and peeled away her diaper, revealing skin blistered with rosy bumps.
“Did she have that yesterday?” Logan frowned at the angry rash.
Paz shook his head. “Ruperta says nothing you bought the baby agrees with her. Not the milk, not the diapers, not the ointment for her bottom.”
Stump shrugged. “Life sucks. She’ll just have to deal with it.”
When Ruperta had the child buttoned back up, she tried to feed her another bottle of formula. As the baby began to twist her head away from the nipple all over again, Stump could tell her opinion of it had not changed. Feeling a fresh rivet of pain above his left eyebrow, he let himself out of the motel room. The Taj Mahal’s parking lot was empty, except for their van. He walked over and unlocked the driver’s door. He needed a smoke. He needed chocolate. Mostly he needed not to have that kid shrieking at him all day. He would try it as they’d planned, then, if Ruperta couldn’t keep that brat quiet, he would send her and Paz out to get some food and just mash a pillow down on her noisy little face. When they returned he’d tell them she’d had some kind of fit and died. Edwina would be furious at losing something she could turn into ready cash, but Edwina could go fuck herself. Right now all he cared about was getting his trap line out for Mary Crow. For that, dead bait would work just as well as live.